Pothead rally turns to violence
Ex-PH2 sends us a link to an NBC article which tells the story of a crowd in Denver assembled to protest federal laws by thousands smoking pot in the streets which turned violent yesterday;
Three people were shot and wounded at a pro-marijuana rally on Saturday, disrupting the first celebration of a symbolic drug culture holiday since Colorado voters legalized the recreational use of pot.
A man and a woman were each shot in the leg and a youth was grazed by a bullet, but the wounds were not life-threatening, Denver police said on Twitter. Officers were looking for two suspects in the shootings, which occurred as the rally was winding down.
“I heard five or six gunshots in quick succession,” said Cole Wagenknecht, 27, who attended the rally at a downtown park near the State Capitol. “That’s why I knew it wasn’t fireworks. Then everybody started to scatter and ran toward one end of the park.”
But, yeah, I’m thinking it’s the gun’s fault, not that it could be about illegal drug use, at a rally that has as it’s theme, protesting a law that everyone at the rally is breaking because marijuana is completely harmless, ya know? Guns, on the other hand are inherently evil. So, yeah, it couldn’t be the drug culture, has to be the gun.
Category: Crime
Wowzers! Someone’s mellow has been harshed!!
MAJMike: either that, or several folks wanted the last bag of munchies – and a couple were armed. (smile)
Will admit to smirking when seeing this story. Don’t know why exactly, but the image of a bunch of confused stoners attempting to formulate an appropriate response was hilarious.
The good news is that they were all too stoned to shoot straight.
Nah! Those guns were high from all the smoke in the air and squeezed their own triggers.
This is what you get when guns re under the influence. They simply can’t control what they do.
One of those guns might have been allergic to smoke, too, and sneezed.
It probably has as much to do with the “drug culture” as the Marathon bombings had to do with the “running culture”. Based on the reports, it looks to have been perpetrated by gang bangers. Perhaps they’re not too happy about the threat that free-markets have on their once illegal and artificially expensive product. The good news is that Colorado can now spend more time and resources on policing the “gang culture” which is the root of the problem, not the guns or drugs.
“I heard five or six gunshots in quick succession,” said Cole Wagenknecht, 27, who attended the rally at a downtown park near the State Capitol. “That’s why I knew it wasn’t fireworks.”
‘Yeah, man, like, when I was a kid, like, nobody ever lit off a string of firecrackers, man. Plus, you know, man, like nobody ever shoots a gun at intervals. Wow, did I just say intervals? Cool. I didn’t know I knew that word, man.’
Well, at least Councilman Charlie Brown was highly critical of the rally…Linus, Lucy, Peppermint Patty, Marcie, Pig Pen, Snoopy, and Woodstock unavailable for comment.
MSNBC will soon tell everyone that the stoners are peaceful, but the Tea Party and Republicans are prone to violence.
I wonder, if Joey the Rock Climbing Hero was there?
Joe the Rockclimber is probably too blitzed to have any idea where the hell he’s been.
Very true, PH.
Amen to Dave’s comment in #6! This isn’t about “drug culture” or about “gun culture.” It’s about gang banger/no respect for others or the law culture. I’m so sick of people painting a picture of marijuana smokers as some sort of evil subgroup of humans. While I don’t personally identify myself as a regular marijuana smoker, I think valuable money and resources are wasted on banning it and hunting down those who would use it. I say legalize it and tax it. In my opinion, marijuana is far safer than alcohol. Even the Lancet published their now famous chart, in which they said marijuana was one of the least dangerous drugs there are…..less dangerous than alcohol.
Yeah, you guys are right, I never should have conflated guns with drugs. It’s obvious that one has nothing to do with either. I mean, breaking the law to smoke pot has nothing to do with breaking the law to shoot people. And look at Mexico, one of the most peaceful places on the planet because there is so much marijuana available there. Oh, yeah, and those Lancet studies are always just so accurate, TAH has run into them before. Yeah, gun violence and drugs are separate issues in the discussion about the culture. Or something.
I don’t know if Jonn was being deliberately ironic, but it’s just as silly to blame “drug culture” as it is to blame “gun culture.”
Not to mention calling anyone who smokes pot a “stoner” is as silly as calling anyone who drinks alcohol a “drunk.”
Colorado has recently voted to legalize recreational marijuana use so they’re not really “breaking the law to smoke pot.”
But every time during past 4/20 rallies that they have broken the law to smoke pot, that means they’re terrible people, right? With no respect for the law, right? Because all marijuana smokers must be lumped into “drug culture” with the likes of meth users and heroine users, right? I honestly feel as though smoking a little bit of marijuana is no different than drinking a cocktail, and I’m not sure what the big fuss is about it. Mexico’s problems aren’t just about marijuana. Marijuana is illegal so there’s big money in smuggling it, but marijuana isn’t the only drug they smuggle. If it were legal here, they wouldn’t be smuggling it into the country because we wouldn’t need them to. Mexico has a multitude of other problems though, such as gang violence and corruption. There have been kidnappings for ransom and casino shootings. But yeah, I guess you can blame all of Mexico’s turmoil on marijuana.
Yeah, there are Federal laws, so they “really” are breaking laws.
That doesn’t really establish causation. Violent crimes are committed by drug users therefore drug users are violent criminals. The cultural problem is one of personal responsibility. The rest of the “blame everything but the person” noise is a distraction.
It is illegal under Federal law, but I think there is a pretty solid 10th Amendment argument there.
@16 It is like the people who don’t want to call illegal immigrants “undocumented.” People feel these days if they don’t like a law they can consider it unjust and not follow it.
@15 Last I checked, public intoxication laws were still on the books whether we are talking about alcohol or marijuana.. I’d venture to say that more than 75% of that crowd was “intoxicated.”
I have also seen pictures of that rally. That new law states that people who can use recreational marijuana have to be 21 years of age. There was a mess of kids that were photographed that were not and could not pass for 21.
Yeah, anyone who doesn’t think that engaging in criminal activity doesn’t attract criminals, just because they don’t consider it criminal activity, deserves what they get.
Yeah, smoking pot at any time, day or night, is nothing, so say those who want to spend their time getting high. OK, if you get stopped by a cop for erratic driving and you’re tested for alcohol, and your blood alcohol level is above the legal limit, you get busted for DUI. If you cause an accident while driving under the influence, you get busted. Jail time. Alcohol is legal, so the correlation to alcohol doesn’t hold up. Likewise, if you drive stoned and have or cause an accident, or you are found to be DUI of pot or other drugs, including prescription drugs that have intoxicant side effects, you’ll get busted for DUI. Doesn’t matter if it’s legal or not, if you screw up, you get busted for DUI. My father got busted for driving when he was taking prescription drugs that made him sleepy, and causing an accident. So I think I can verify that pot is crap, as are other drugs. So is alcohol. Oh, yeah — my own personal experience with people who smoke dope comes from working for people who got stoned on their lunch hour and left their work for me to fix. I did special FX images from the graphics they created. They’d give me their day’s work, leave at 4 or 5PM, and I would be there until 2AM fixing their mistakes, correcting their errors, redoing the crappy artwork they gave me which was supposed to be camera-ready and was not. My usual day ran from 7AM to 2AM, 6 to 7 days a week, because these jerks thought it was more important to have their weed than it was to do their jobs. I found another job because my health and welfare were more important to me than lining the pockets of a bunch of useless turd dope smokers. My last idiot boss, before I quit in disgust and retired, got stoned or drunk on her lunch hour. She asked me if I smoked dope and when I said ‘No’, she said “well, you should.” So I walked out and… Read more »
The Boston bombing was extraordinary and shocking. Gunfire at a dopers’ rally? Not. Drugs and guns. Guns and drugs. They are wedded and you can’t divorce one from the other. Are all dopers gun users? Of course not. Most of the stoners don’t like guns at all, I’d guess. But the supply side needs guns to do their business. Some suggest that legalizing the THC stuff would cap that. Fat chance, unless the dopers are assured that the gov’t itself will sell the dope and that its stuff will beat the street competitions’s in quality and price. But since it’s gov’t, there is no way it would be cheaper. Then there’s the health issues of smoking weed. I guess the green generation is good with that. It’s just big tobacco that the real evil. Whatever. If you got ’em, light ’em.
That’s what I’m getting at. Why not pop people for doing things which actually harm other people? A bit of responsibility for their actions. Everyone I’ve worked for has had a zero tolerance policy with regards to drugs. Do something stupid while on drugs, pay the price.
@22 Even if the government does get ahold of the drug market and regulate it; they will tax it to high heaven. The black market would rise up again, and you would have the same issues. I mean when we start to have a black market in New York for cigarettes; why wouldn’t it happen with the drug trade with government involvement? It would be easier with the drug market because they already have an established black market.
Most people can’t grow tobacco in their basement. The risks of black market purchases and sales increases dramatically when tax revenue is involved.
@#12, Anon in Jax, Lancet, the ones who even one of their authors of their treatise on Iraq casualties said, “It may not be extremely precise, but it gets us into the ball park.” That was Les Roberts. So, yeah, smoking dope may not be harmful, or it might be, but we’re close, though?
Personal oppinion, i dont care what ya do in your own home. As a cop, i see ya smoking weed, im gonna bust ya. it is illegal, plain and simple. just because the state has passed laws to legalize it and stopped enforcing the federal laws, doesnt change the federal laws that are in place.
the supreme court has held numerous times, that federal law superceeds state and local laws, so 10th ammendment doesnt hold up. once the federal law has been justified through the court systems as constitutional, no state passed law can over ride it.
so bottom line, everyone of the people that were smoking weed at their little rally were breaking the law. why would we be surprised that people who do not care about one set of laws would disregard another? if we all pick and choose what laws we like and are going to follow, does that mean i can go shoot Michael Moore? i dont like the laws saying i cant. i dont think it should be illegal to shoot Michael Moore so long as i dont bother anyone else while im doing it. the majority of the country think i should be able to shoot Michael Moore in the privacy of my own home… you see where this goes? we have laws for a reason, abide by them!
@15 – yes, they were still breaking the law because, even though the possession and use of pot in your own house is now legal, smoking it in public is not.
This is not the first 4/20 “celebration” here, it’s been going on for years and regularly draws crowds of 60,000 – 80,000 potheads and bums, both downtown and on the CU-Boulder campus. CU managed to keep them out this year though.
Too bad we couldn’t get that many people downtown to protest the gun control bills.
Well, holy hell, what the hell is the point in having individual states and state laws?! You’ve cleared it all up for me! The fact that the PEOPLE voted to make marijuana legal, that doesn’t matter because the federal government says marijuana isn’t legal. Oh wow, I get it now. Thanks for the enlightenment.
@#21, Ex-PH2, if anyone chooses to get stoned or drunk while on their lunch hour, they don’t deserve the job they’re lucky enough to have and they probably have a substance abuse problem if they can’t at least wait until they get off of work. That has nothing to do with a 4/20 rally.
I understand there are health risks associated with smoking weed, but there are also health risks associated with smoking cigarettes, drinking too much alcohol, even with the disgusting overly processed foods we eat.
Even with taking the Lancet out of the equation, I know more than one doctor who shares my opinion about marijuana not being as potentially dangerous as other substances. When my son is old enough, I’d far rather he smoke marijuana than drink and drive, use meth, use inhalants, or any of the other alternatives. Will I encourage it? Obviously not. But I certainly think it far less dangerous than the alternatives. When I was in high school, I lost multiple classmates to drinking and driving. I never lost a single classmate that I am aware of to marijuana.
I’m sorry but is it wrong for me to find that story funny? Am I a hater or a drugcict if I find humor in the idea that at a rally to celebrate the state legalization of a federally prohibited activity there was a shooting?
We can hold a pro 2A rally with thousands of guns and not leave so much as a candy wrapper on the ground but at a stoners ball in the park there’s a shooting. Quick, someone remind me again of who the violent ones are!!
Anonymous in Jax: well, you might want to re-read part of the US Constitution – specifically, Article VI. It contains something called a “Supremacy Clause”, as I recall.
Bottom line: Federal law trumps state laws to the contrary. Fully legal, and fully in accordance with the Constitution.
And yet, some sheriffs in cities around the country are coming out and saying they won’t acknowledge a federal ban on weapons. And yet, some states, including North Dakota, are disregarding Roe v. Wade and putting far more restrictions on abortion. There are an awful lot of contradictions out there. But yep, some people who were smoking pot are just a bunch of criminals. It’s not like we have more important things to worry about or anything.
“And yet, some sheriffs in cities around the country are coming out and saying they won’t acknowledge
a federalan unconstitutional ban on weapons.”Anecdotally, I know doctors who think that pot smoking is just as dangerous to health as smoking tobacco.
Oh, Roe v. Wade? Find “the right to privacy” in the Constitution.
Okay, so if you’re going to bring the Constitution into the debate, what Constitutional justification do you have to ban marijuana smoking?
I’m not a fan of big government. The more rules they want to impose on us, the less free I feel. I don’t think I need a group of corrupt, greedy men and women telling me what to think, how to feel, and how to act.
@34, um, actually, you brought it up with your comment in #32. As for banning marijuana, read what was said in #31.
I was only pointing out that despite some proposed federal laws either banning the sale of some weapons or federal laws upholding the right for women to have an abortion, some states have taken the opposite stance. I guess I don’t understand why you guys seem to have such an issue with the whole marijuana thing. That thing specifically being the people of Colorado voting for marijuana to be made legal, yet someone said “federal law still makes it illegal so they’re breaking the law.” Even if federal law does still ban it and they’re breaking federal law, the people of Colorado have spoken. So what’s the problem? That’s what I don’t understand. Why do you guys keep calling them criminals and acting as though they’re doing something so horrible. There were tens of thousands of people there and one person fired shots. That doesn’t make everyone bad….or make them all criminals. And I would think a group such as you guys would understand that for sure. The fact that it was a 4/20 rally shouldn’t make that much difference to me. To me, it was some dumbass who wasn’t smart enough to leave his gun at home if he was gonna be under the influence of any sort of substance. But that’s no more the marijuana’s fault than it is the gun’s fault. It’s the fault of the dumbass who didn’t exercise good judgement.
The problem with that, Anonymous in Jax, is that the supremacy clause in the US Constitution is there for a very good reason. Without it, states could nullify any Federal law they pleased on a case-by-case basis. This would allow them to legalize a whole number of things that Federal law makes illegal.
Would you be in favor of a state exempting all its male citizens from the obligation to register for the draft, or legalizing desertion from the armed forces within its boundaries? Or allowing “color lines” with regard to real estate, or the segregation of public facilities and establishments? The position you advocate – allowing states to nullify existing Federal law by state action – could allow all of those.
Your comparison with abortion law above is not a good one. Abortion law today at the Federal level is largely case law vice statutory. And that Federal case law does indeed allow restrictions and regulations to be imposed on abortion – which is what those state laws you rail against impose. In some cases those state laws are found to be consistent with prior court decisions on the matter and are left intact. In other cases, they’re found to be inconsistent with legal precedent and are overturned.
As for Constitutional authority: last time I checked, making something illegal is a rather extreme way of regulating trade in said item (e.g., it reduces the lawful trade in same to zero). I’m not a big fan of the Commerce Clause being used as justification for legislation – it’s abused quite often to serve as bogus legal justification for Federal laws, IMO. But in this case, perhaps it’s actually apropos. One can indeed make a reasonable argument that banning lawful possession of an item outright is an extreme form of regulation of commerce and is thus within the authority granted the Federal Congress by Article I, Section 8.
“HEY, like,…. weed OUGHT to be legal,… My reason I say that is…. DUUUUDE! I FORGOT IT AGAIN!!!
they are criminals, they are breaking federal law, no ifs ands or buts about it.
as for abortion, the “restrictions” that are being placed on the clinics in many states (mississippi is the big one right now) is that the clinics meet health department standards. the pro abortion groupies are complaining that it is a violation of women’s right to force the clinics to meet standard health code requirements! the clinics that are being shut down are being shut because they werent even as clean as your local McDonalds! would you want to have a surgical procedure in McDonalds? liberals think you should be able to. they also think that while having a surgical procedure your doctor shouldnt be required to have admitting privalages at a local hospital (or any in the state). so when something goes wrong, as it does too often, the woman is just shit out of luck. check out this philly abortionist on trial for 8 counts of murder. disregarding the 7 born alive infants he stabbed in the back of the neck with scissors, the mother that died could have been saved had the clinic met health codes, or fire codes, or any building inspection codes. by the time the abortionist finally called an ambulance (because he couldnt direct admit to the hospital) the abulance had to wait on the fire department to cut open the fire exit that was bolted shut! had there been a fire there every person inside would have burned alive, but that should be acceptable so long as abortions are being performed with out question.
Unless the Feds have pre-empted state action in a particular area, states are free to ‘have at it’ when it comes to enacting, rescinding, or staying legislatively silent in that particular area. Of course, the authority for the Federal law must trace to a constitutional or constitutionally derived power. Without this, the sole authority to act belongs to the states, thanks to the resurrected 10th Amendment. But, aside from all of that, duality of sovereignty is a factor often ovelooked. Because the Federal gov’t and a state gov’t are separate sovereigns, a person can commit a single crimianl act and be tried separately by the state and the Feds. Double jeopardy it is not. Thus, if a guy robs a bank, he can be tried separately by the state and the Feds, be convicted by both, and receive separate sentences, all for the same crime. Law can be fun!
Can’t understand this – didn’t the Colorado legislature just pass new gun laws which would make everyone safe forever? How could there posssibly be shootings at a public park or at a pro-pot rally? They just passed a LAW, fuhchrissakes!
@42. It takes time to get the word out. When more people know about the law, this sort of stuff (random or targeted shootings) will stop like a car approaching a yellow light with a cop behind it. It might take another 7-10 days.
Like, it wasn’t the weed’s fault, like,… Dude,.. The gun did it, yeah,.. I belong to the Marijuana Association, and, …… DUDE! I FORGOT OUR SLOGAN AGAIN!!! Hey, what was I talking about,….. HEY, somebody buy me a pizza, and I’ll split it with you, c’mon, show a Dudeman some love…..
There we go, that sounds like someone from that crowd, doesn’t it?
@45 – What’d you say, dude?
21 – “She asked me if I smoked dope and when I said ‘No’, she said “well, you should”. She’s on to something Ex-PH2, might help with all that free-floating hostility.
HUH? What were we just talking about? HEY, buy me a hamburger, and I’ll split it with you!!
Hey, Joe, can you see which finger I’m holding up?
There’s that hostility again. Can’t be good for you.
You’re showing yourself again, Joe. The fact that you condone smoking marijuana tells alot about you, but that’s something we sorta figured out a long time ago.
Go climb a rock or something.